the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 12.11.2002
Which problems exactly?
Despite the relatively light reporting, I suppose everybody that keeps up the news (and certainly all bigdumbHoosier readers) are aware of the comments by Senate Majority leader Trent Lott at the celebration of Sen. Strom Thurmond's hundredth birthday. If not, check out these links to the WaPost: Lott Decried For Part Of Salute to Thurmond and Lott Remarks on Thurmond Echoed 1980 Words. It seems that our right-leaning media gave more ink to Sen. Lott's 'apology' then to the comments themselves.
Sure, Thurmond (then, theoretically a Democrat) was a segregationist in 1948. Sure, Sen. Lott of Mississippi is, by all appearances, an unrepentant confederate. That's the obvious part. I suppose Mississippi is entitled to elect a dinosaur to represent them, if they wish - that's democracy in action. The Republicans are entitled to pick a dinosaur as their leader too.
What this bigdumbHoosier wants to know (and a question that I haven't seen any 'journalist' even ask Senator Lott) is, what exactly was he referring to when he said "if the rest of the country had followed our lead [in voting for Strom Thurmond], we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
All what problems, exactly? Sure, there have been plenty of problems in the USA since '48 - there was the cold war, McCarthyism, the War in Vietnam, the S&L debacle, various political assassinations, urban decay, industrial decline, the trade deficit, pollution, sprawl, the oil wars. I don't want an apology, Mr. Lott, I want to know which of these you believe a segregationist president have prevented. All I can figure is that Senator Lott sees the decline of institutionalized racism in America as a problem. If there's another explanation for his comments, I'd like to hear it.
Epilogue; 12.22.02 - shortly after I posted this piece, the national debate on the subject of Sen. Lott's comments became a firestorm of criticism. Sen. Lott attempted several apologies, but ended losing all credibility. Perhaps the final straw was his claim to be for affirmative action 'across the boards' during a BET interview, where some of the same questions I asked here were finally pressed. About a week later, he stepped down as majority leader.
